Understandably the people of Ethiopia in particular and the entire population of the world in general are closely and seriously watching and following the day to day incidents of the popular revolution currently undergoing in Egypt. Almost every citizen of the world wishes and prays as well for the success of this revolution which is the first of its kind in the recorded history the Egyptian people.
Why are most of us impatiently waiting for the successful accomplishment of this popular revolution? We can mention at least two reasons offhand now. First, this Hosni Mubarak of Egypt who has been in power for the last three decades has to go. According to people’s words of resentment and indignation, he has been tyrant and undemocratic. In addition, this Mubarak hasn’t met the needs and expectations of the majority in that country. Due to that, analysts and the general public say, poverty and economic recession are in rife; coping up with life standards and challenging the ever increasing living cost are becoming major problems. Therefore, the people of Egypt are currently demanding a change. Second, this revolution must succeed because it is an epitome to those people of the world who live under similar circumstances. The failure by all insincere means of this revolution has certain negative impacts on other attempts to get rid of same crooked despots elsewhere on the globe. In light of this, it is vitally important that Egyptians do away with this Mubarak for a number of other concomitant reasons as well two of which are the following.
Number one. If this revolution is aborted, Mubarak will go on as usual doing whatever he wants to do at the expense of the people and the country by and large. Moreover, he will systematically take revenge like our Meles Zenawi has been involved in an absolute vengeance since the time his megalomaniac party, EPRDF, was stunningly defeated in landslide by CUD in 2005. We are now facing the consequence for the “misdemeanor” we committed in electing the party we were enthusiastically willing to be led by.
Number two. If at all this Mubarak is going to be ready to leave his throne within the time frame as he has promised now, i.e., September 2011, a date set to carry out another national election, which has usually been serving to inform the people of the victory of this Mubarak, he will definitely manipulate the process of the election as he’s used to do so and as a result another Egyptian Medvedev will have replaced the current Egyptian Mubarak by then. Just, I’d like to remind every one the fact that if this revolution fails to succeed now or as of now, the aforementioned scenario will inevitably be appearing in the political arena of this historical country. We Ethiopians know the intrigue of dictators. We have an abundant experience. We have been in it for so log, even since a time immemorial.
In favor the sustenance of the old regime in Egypt, Mr. Mubarak and his cronies within and/or without the country are doing their inside job to abort this revolution. By the way, had this revolution been erupted somewhere else, out of Egypt which is strategically crucially important to some influential nations in both militarily and economically, it wouldn’t have been this much difficult for the people to find any way out to add that “last straw which breaks the camel’s back.” But, as a matter of fact, due to some obvious reasons, the people of Egypt and Ethiopia, too, are peoples with mixed blessings due to their geographical and geopolitical locations along with their historical ties with this or that nation of the “Big Brothers’” camp. Well, for the time being, you can’t help; just wehave to grit our teeth until maybe the Almighty gives His viable solution to all ridiculous problems we observe especially in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.
It is a worrying phenomenon that we are seeing in Egypt now. After seven or eight days of peaceful protest, in fact we are made aware that some 150 innocent citizens whose aspiration was nothing but freedom have been sacrificed in due course of time, the crafty intriguers of Mubarak are laboriously toiling day and night in fabricating lies as a pretext to defame the real cause of the revolution and on top of that they are currently busy of organizing pseudo anti-protest group that consists of some villains and individuals with special mission. This group of people is said to have come from the security and the police in civil clothing to ruin the genuine struggle of the people of Egypt. As wolves in sheep’s clothing entail an unprecedented damage, likewise the people of Egypt should take care of this unexpected challenge from the ruling regime. What is surprisingly lamenting here is that this group is provided by the government with so called Molotov Cocktails to frustrate or frighten the protestors and as a result to foil the peaceful protest against the longest tyranny in the country. So far, some four innocent people are reported to be killed due to this ill advised trick of the Egyptian government. Though the horn of the problems of Egyptians seems to be at home, based on circumstantially fishy situations, we can say that the tail of those alleged problems of Egyptians, even that of Ethiopians as well for that matter, is assuredly outside of the territories of the countries.
We have this outstanding saying in Amharic: “Begatawa yetemamenech beg latuan [ke’bet] wuch tasadralech.” This roughly means, ‘A sheep that is overconfident of her master (owner) leaves her tail out of the house it is supposed to spend the night.” In case I have at least one Ferenji reader of this resentful piece of writing – this saying is used when an individual who is weak, but yet tricky and shrewd, is trying to illegally and unreasonably influence or harm others who are legitimate and strong based on a promise from somebody to offer assistance or retaliate in case the manipulation of the weak fails.
That is it. I have said enough for now. Only few basic points are remaining. Let’s all pray for Egypt and for those countries which are suffering under similar tyrant regimes, like Ethiopia. Let’s all pray for the successful accomplishment of the popular revolution by the Egyptians. Let’s all meditate for few moments so that the Almighty would intervene in this pious public uprising of the Nile. Most of all, let’s all realize that the miscarriage of this freedom movement is also the miscarriage of justice in the world and the signal it sends to ruthless officials is something heartening. Let’s therefore understand the fact that the abortion of this revolution is a source of happiness to similar despotic dictators all over the globe; and hence, let’s pray to God, to Allah, to whatever deity we worship so that He/they stand beside the people to free them from being an eternal prey of authoritarian and totalitarian predators.
— The writer can be reached at [email protected]
— NB. I would be very happy if this letter reaches all human destinations most preferably all press and electronic media, the Egyptian bloggers, etc. Those of you who have the opportunity to do so, please try to extend your right hand and disseminate my message from one horizon to another so that especially know our concernedness in our communal societal issues such this one. With lots of thanks.
